Founded in 1981, People for the American Way is a liberal advocacy group that describes its vision as “a vibrantly diverse democratic society in which everyone is treated equally under law.”

Its principal founder is television producer and political activist Norman Lear, the creator of the classic sitcom “All in the Family.”

Built around Archie Bunker, an ignorant, stupid, uncouth, far-right bigot, Lear used the program’s supporting characters to lampoon Archie’s warped perspectives on life.

In addition to being a huge success in the ratings, “All in the Family” provided Lear with the perfect platform to denigrate conservative principles on everything from patriotism and a strong military, to the importance of religion in American life.

He’s still at it today too. His organization’s fixation with “right-wing” bogeymen leaves no doubt that his political passion of years ago rages on. People for the American Way’s website exhorts visitors to “Speak Out Against Intolerance. That’s the American Way.”

Not that anybody could argue with that, right? Well, not so fast. Something’s missing from that noble call to arms. An asterisk.

A warning to the unwary that here, as is so often the case with people and organizations preaching from the left wing, bigotry is not only acceptable but praiseworthy when directed at practicing Catholics, other conscientious Christians, and their respective churches.

Lear’s selective crusaders provide yet another example of this undisguised double standard in a blog that viciously condemns those who have spoken out against the Brooklyn Museum’s presentation of “A Fire in My Belly,” a film containing an anti-Christian segment that is blatant and vile.

Produced by the late homosexual activist David Wojnarowicz, it shows the image of Jesus Christ, the centerpiece of the Christian faith, the figure whom devout adherents worship and love as the Son of God and their Redeemer, on a crucifix with ants crawling over him.

To practicing Christians, the sacrilege is obvious and its magnitude shocking.

If career atheist Michael Newdow is “offended” by the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, practicing Christians have every right to be livid over this graphic desecration of their faith.

Yet, after Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio wrote to the government-funded museum asking that the exhibit be removed, its Chairman of the Board, John S. Tamagni, responded with the inane assertion that “Nothing in the exhibition was meant to be offensive.”

DISPARATE TREATMENT

Dispositive of the matter, however, is the fact that it’s the effect, not the intent, that controls when the issue is the use of taxpayer dollars to either advance or attack religion.

Tamagni’s disclaimer must have Wojnarowicz doing pirouettes in his grave, though. In 1991, he railed against “walking swastikas that wear religious garments.” He’d hardly be pleased to think that anybody could possibly mistake his hate-filled footage for benign musings.

In 1999, the Brooklyn Museum displayed “The Holy Virgin Mary,” an overtly anti-Catholic painting by Chris Ofili. It features a black Madonna adorned with elephant dung and close-up images of female genitalia.

Some argue that the museum is merely providing a forum for the free expression of ideas.

In theory, that’s plausible; in reality, it’s a crock of manure.

No rational individual truly believes that the Brooklyn Museum would display a piece similarly degrading to any minority group protected by the politically correct umbrella.

And it wouldn’t matter if its creator were the reincarnation of Michelangelo or Picasso or Rembrandt or Giotto. It’s this recurring disparate treatment that makes the museum’s anti-Catholic, anti-Christian excursions even more repugnant.

Others suggest that Wojnarowicz’s 11 seconds of ants crawling over the image of Jesus is so trivial that it doesn’t merit comment, much less condemnation. Yet it took less than three seconds for shock jock Don Imus to laughingly and offhandedly call the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” A week later he was fired.

At the time, Norman Lear called Imus “the boil reflective of the disease” and urged Americans to see “the truth of racism in our culture.”

Today, however, operating knee-deep and defiantly in the left’s unshakeable hypocrisy, Lear’s People for the American Way is blasting critics of the Brooklyn museum as “fascists” and “neo-fascists.”

Among those so smeared is “America Needs Fatima,” a Catholic initiative dedicated to spreading devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The final irony is that while Lear and company are aggressively defending the Brooklyn Museum, they’ve prepared a 6,000-word condemnation of anti-Muslim bigotry. The piece also decries bias against gays and immigrants, as well as hatred of President Barack Obama.

Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State, subtitles his 2004 book on Anti-Catholicism in America “The Last Acceptable Prejudice.”

Yet, while the Catholic Church remains the target of what Arthur Schlesinger Sr. called “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” the hatred is beginning to encompass all of Christianity.

And the culprits are the New-Age Archie Bunkers - people like Norman Lear, for example, and his cadre of left-wing bigots. {et

[Daniel Leddy’s column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]